Traedogg Down Under

Well, like I said, I knew there would be pleanty more “Live and Learn” entries and some how I’m guessing most of them will involve food and dining out! This Live and Learn is not as embarassing or as costly as the first… but just a very strange dining experience. After the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb (I will recap that below), my roomates and I decided to stay downtown and go out to eat at a cool resturaunt in Sydney. Being the nerd that I am (here is where you all can chuckle b/c you can totally picture me doing this), I took the time to sift through Sydney’s “Enternainment book” of coupons and pull out every coupon for every restauraunt within a mile of downtown Sydney where we were. Then, after the bridge climb, I made my roomates wander around the city trying to find these places so we could use our coupons;)! (hey.. it was a good deal.. 25% off the total bills at really nice places!)

We finally get to a place we all agree on on Pitt street (one of the main streets in downtown sydney) called the Coolabar. At this point, we were all starving after the bridge climb and took forever to decide what to order b/c everything looked amazing. I ended up going with the chicken fajitas (for 20 bucks.. one of the moderately priced items on the menu) and they were excellent! Trying not to stuff myself, I saved nearly a full chicken breast worth of chicken, guac, sour cream and cheese and was intent on saving them for lunch the next day. One of the things we have learned here (after waiting 30 minutes for the bill at dinner one day after we were finished eating).. is that they never bring the bill unless you ask… so feeling awefully smart, we ask for the bill and then request a to-go box. The waitress looked at us puzzled and said, “we dont do take away here?” And we were like. ” Oh, well we have leftovers and we just need a small container to put them in.” And she was like, “we don’t do “take away,” at this resturaunt we dont even have any containers… we have a bag I could give you?” (The thought of my chicken, guac, sour cream and cheese thrown into a bag flashed through my head…..)… “Thank you anyways…” I blurted out quickly, and she walked away! NO TO GO CONTAINERS! COME ON!!!! So the roomates and i had to stuff ourselves.. b/c come on.. you cant let guac go to waste! (Nick, I know you’re proud of me for that one!) But apparently, resturaunts here can be Dine in, Take away, or both.. and if its both, its not prob to get a container, but if its only dine in.. good luck! oh well! YOU LIVE AND LEARN!

About the Bridge Climb… I’ll just say it was one hell of a view. (excuse my French). Its not really scarry at all b/c they have you attached to safety ropes and the climb up the arch of the bridge isn’t as steep or as narrow as you might think. But its about 3 1/2 hours total b/c you spend the first 45 min or so inside putting on your hott looking “bridge climb suit!!!” (its a one piece..soo hott.. i will post pictures monday).. and they run you through simulations of some of the ladders and steps you face on the way up. But the view of the city and the harbour is INCREDIBLE! They take a ton of pictures of you and your “group” (about 12 people in each group) on the top of the bridge and along the way, and they outfit you with headphones so you can hear the tour guide talking and pointing out landmarks around the harbour. Then, when you come back in, they give you a complementary photo of the group because you’re not allowed to take cameras with you on the climb. So, unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to show you pics from the actual “bridge” for another 3-4 months, but I have a few I’ll post from pre/post climb as soon as I can!!

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 6th, 2005 at 2:01 am and is filed under In Australia!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.